


It Hurts to be Beautiful

by MiloFindsSatisfaction



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 22:51:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18082457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiloFindsSatisfaction/pseuds/MiloFindsSatisfaction





	It Hurts to be Beautiful

“Sit in Bubbe’s chair, dear, I’ll be with you in a minute!” Ema called from the bathroom.  
Trina walked by the open door and paused for a moment, watching her Ema apply makeup delicately to her face. Ema slowly filled in her face with dark reds and stiff blacks. Her eyes appeared to pop out of her skull in contrast to her mascara as they looked into Trina’s, reflected in the mirror.  
“Don’t let your skirt drag, dear,” Ema ordered. “It was Bubbe’s, you know.”  
Trina knew.  
Trina grabbed the folds of her pink dress. It shivered with her movements, obstructing her walk to Bubbe’s chair, which waited patiently in the sunrise. She arrived and smoothed out the shimmering, sunlit fabric before sitting. Beneath her, through the dress, she felt the blossoms and vines Bubbe had embroidered many years ago. Trina knew the design by heart; three tulips, one deep blue, one the color of Trina’s dress, and one the rare purple at the edge of a sunrise, all three twisted together with two vibrant vines of green and silver, intertwined and curving to a new group of tulips. The chair itself was an ashy, faded brown.  
Trina heard the pop of Ema finishing with her lipstick. She sat taller and listened as Ema’s shoes clicked on the hardwood floors.  
One step.  
Two steps.  
Three.  
Four.  
Five.  
Six, seven.  
Eightnineten.  
Here.  
Ema’s cold hands slid on Trina’s neck as she swept her hair over the back of the chair and began brushing.  
“I never had a bat mitzvah, you know,” Ema said.  
Trina knew.  
“I’d always wanted one. Of course, back then there were only bar mitzvahs, and I couldn’t have one of those. They were for boys.” She pulled the brush through a small knot in Trina’s hair. Trina clenched her fist in a pocket created by the folds of her dress so Ema wouldn’t see.  
“The only thing for me to look forwards to was my wedding. It was only a few years to wait. Seventeen was hardly too young — ” Ema poked the bristles through another, bigger knot. “ — like some think today.” The knot fell apart. “But, you have a bat mitzvah, so there’s no reason to get married too quickly.” Ema paused in her brushing and speaking. “Trina? Listen to me.”  
“Yes, Ema,” Trina said.  
“When you find a good man, you take him and make him yours. Any man you like can be yours. Do you understand?”  
“No,” Trina said.  
Ema picked at a large knot. “Men are like hair and knots. Now you have an Ema to fix your knots, but someday I will be gone and you will have to pull them apart and let them fall loose.” The knot wouldn’t come out. Ema placed the brush just above it. “You will have to fix — ” she ripped the brush through the knot, pulling Trina’s head with it “ — them.”  
Trina shrieked. “Ema! That hurt.”  
The sunrise shone red light around Ema, casting a silhouetted figure above Trina. Only her eyes, glowing gel and veins, could be seen. She smiled. Bone-white teeth tinted with blood.  
“It hurts to be beautiful.”


End file.
